2026-05-20T09:00:50.910Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/20/politics/trump-ballroom-judgment-fund-taxpayer-money-analysis
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唐纳德·特朗普总统经常吹嘘，他主导的项目进度超前、预算可控，还能为纳税人省钱。
但追根溯源，资金最终都会回到纳税人身上。
不只是捐赠者。
特朗普长期承诺，他计划在白宫新增的大型宴会厅将由他本人和私人捐款出资。
“这全部都是我和捐赠者的钱，”他周二在施工现场对记者表示，背景中传来锤子和机械的敲击声。
但尽管特朗普将这座宴会厅视为他和捐赠者送给国家的“礼物”，他也需要纳税人也来出力。特朗普正在向参议院共和党人寻求2.2亿美元拨款，而共和党人必须以党派投票方式通过这项提案——目前该提案已遭遇一些挑战。这笔资金甚至超过了该项目最初公布的总成本，而项目的规模、范围和标价都已大幅膨胀。
特朗普称，军方和特勤局的相关要求让项目规模变大、成本变高。
美国财政部。
作为总统撤销对自己政府提起的诉讼的交换条件，特朗普政府预计将从实际上无限额度的美国政府“赔偿基金”中拨款近18亿美元，用于支付那些声称遭到司法部 targeted 的人员赔偿。
副总统JD·万斯周二拒绝排除一项可能性：2021年1月6日袭击警察并被定罪的骚乱者，有可能获得赔偿。
他表示，该基金的批评者应该考虑到存在许多不同的“资金池”，本届政府既可以帮助普通美国民众，也可以为他所说的“在上一届政府手下遭受不公对待的人”弥补损失。
“我们所有人每天都在问的问题是：‘我们如何让我们的同胞生活得更富足？’”万斯说道。
理论上，国会可以介入，为这个1950年代设立用于解决诉讼纠纷的基金设置支付限制，但尚不确定国会是否会这么做。
往届总统曾以激怒特朗普的方式动用过该基金。例如，奥巴马政府曾动用赔偿基金解决与伊朗之间持续数十年的失败军火交易争端，并以此启动伊朗同意限制其核计划的协议。
特朗普后来让美国退出了该协议，而如今他正与伊朗进行一场未公开宣战的战争。目前这场处于停火状态的战争的总成本尚未有说明，尽管特朗普曾盘算过夺取伊朗石油并“大赚一笔”。
一名五角大楼官员近日表示，已有290亿美元纳税人资金被投入这场战争，但这一数字似乎远低于这场战争的最终成本。
尽管为这场战争买单存在诸多实际争议，但国会已经向总统拨付了2.57亿美元用于翻新肯尼迪中心。用特朗普这位房地产开发商的话来说，这意味着该项目“完全自筹资金”，尽管纳税人实际上已经承担了相关责任。
去年10月，他在一场有富裕捐赠者和企业代表参加的活动中，也曾用“完全自筹资金”来形容这座宴会厅项目。
白宫公布了一份捐赠者名单，其中许多是与政府有业务往来的科技公司，但并未详细说明他们的捐款金额。至少有一笔捐款可能是在胁迫下支付的。根据去年提交的法庭文件，特朗普此前与YouTube就其账号被封禁一事达成和解，作为交换，YouTube向该宴会厅项目捐赠了2200万美元。
此前在白宫接待捐赠者时，特朗普曾预测会有剩余资金，可用于在阿灵顿国家公墓前的交通环岛建造一座凯旋门。
但事实证明，这座拱门的部分费用将由纳税人承担。民主党人指出，国会拨给国家人文基金会的数百万美元资金可能会被用于该拱门项目。
本届政府还曾考虑动用人文预算来支付特朗普计划中的“英雄花园”项目费用。该花园计划设置250尊美国知名人士的真人大小雕像，和这座拱门一样，都是为了纪念《独立宣言》发表250周年。根据CNN近期的一篇报道，美国政府已经为该花园预留了约7400万美元，同时还在为花园和特朗普颇具争议的构想寻求额外捐赠——他计划将当地一处华盛顿高尔夫球场改造为锦标赛级别的林克斯球场。
特朗普提出的将林肯纪念堂和华盛顿纪念碑之间的倒影池漆成蓝色以美化环境的计划也遭遇了阻碍。特朗普最初吹嘘这项工程的花费不到200万美元，但CNN对联邦承包数据的审查显示，该项目已获得超过1300万美元的拨款。
美国空军正准备为卡塔尔捐赠的、适配特朗普政府需求的新“空军一号”举行揭幕仪式。美国政府接受这架价值4亿美元的飞机引发了伦理争议，还险些违反了宪法的薪酬条款。
但特朗普为接收这份免费礼物进行了辩护，尽管接受这架飞机最终代价不菲。
CNN曾报道，用于改装这架飞机的数亿美元资金是从“哨兵”项目中挪用的，该项目是一个进度落后的核武器现代化计划。这架飞机仅作为过渡机型，用于下一代“空军一号”交付前的运营，而下一代机型的研发进度也已滞后。新的总统专机机队预计将在特朗普卸任后投入使用。
纳税人出资升级了这架专机，但特朗普却对卡塔尔表达了大肆感谢。
“我要是个蠢人，可能会说‘不，我们不要免费的昂贵飞机’，但它——我认为这是一个很棒的 gesture（表态），”特朗普去年5月说道。
这并非特朗普在被问及资金问题时回避解释的最后一次。本月，当一名记者问及宴会厅成本翻倍的问题时，他斥对方“愚蠢”——尽管特朗普一再声称该项目进度超前且预算可控。
“我把它的规模扩大了一倍，你这个蠢人，”他在白宫草坪上说道。
Who will pay for Trump’s pet projects? Taxpayers
2026-05-20T09:00:50.910Z / https://www.cnn.com/2026/05/20/politics/trump-ballroom-judgment-fund-taxpayer-money-analysis
A version of this story appeared in CNN’s What Matters newsletter. To get it in your inbox, sign up for free here.
President Donald Trump frequently boasts that his projects are ahead of schedule, under budget and saving taxpayers money.
But following the money invariably leads back to the taxpayers.
Not just donors.
Trump has long promised the massive ballroom he plans to add to the White House would be paid for by him and with private donations.
“This is all my money and donors’ money,” he told reporters Tuesday in front of the construction site as hammers and machinery banged in the background.
But while Trump views the ballroom as his and his donors’ “gift” to the country, he’ll need taxpayers to chip in too. Trump is looking for a $220 million check from Senate Republicans, who would have to pass it on a party-line vote — which has already run into some challenges. That’s larger than the originally advertised total cost of the project, whose size, scope and price tag have ballooned.
Trump said requests from the military and the Secret Service made the project larger and more expensive.
The US Treasury.
In exchange for the president dropping a lawsuit against his own government, the Trump administration is expected to allot nearly $1.8 billion from an effectively unlimited US government “Judgment Fund” for people who say they were targeted by the Justice Department.
Vice President JD Vance refused Tuesday to rule out the idea that rioters convicted of attacking police officers on January 6, 2021, could be compensated.
Critics of the fund, he said, should consider that there are many different “pots of money” and that the administration could both help everyday Americans and make amends to people he said were “mistreated by the last administration.”
“The question all of us ask every single day is, ‘How do we make our fellow citizens more prosperous?’” Vance said.
Congress could theoretically step in to put guardrails on payments from a fund that it created in the 1950s to settle lawsuits, but it’s not clear it will.
Previous presidents have used the fund in ways that angered Trump. The Obama administration, for instance, tapped the Judgment Fund to settle a decades-old dispute with Iran over a failed arms deal and to kickstart the deal by which Iran agreed to limit its nuclear aspirations.
Trump later withdrew the US from that deal, and now he’s engaged in an undeclared war on Iran. His administration has not said how much that war — which is in ceasefire mode — will cost, although Trump has mused about taking Iran’s oil and making “plenty of money.”
One Pentagon official recently said $29 billion in taxpayer dollars had already been spent, but that seems likely to be far lower than the war’s ultimate cost.
While there are real questions about paying for the war, Congress has already given the president $257 million to rehab the Kennedy Center, which in Trump’s real estate developer language translates into having the project “fully financed,” even though taxpayers are on the hook.
He used that same term, “fully financed,” last October during an event he hosted for wealthy donors and corporations that chipped in for the ballroom.
The White House released a list of donors, many of them tech companies with business before the government, but has not detailed their donations. At least one donation may have been made under duress. Trump settled a lawsuit with YouTube over suspension of his account years ago in exchange for a $22 million donation to the ballroom project, according to court documents filed last year.
Back when he was hosting donors at the White House, Trump predicted there would be money left he could use to construct a triumphal arch in a traffic circle in front of Arlington National Cemetery.
But it turns out that taxpayers will be paying for some portion of the arch. Democrats have noted that millions in taxpayer funds Congress appropriated to the National Endowment for the Humanities could go to the arch.
The administration has also looked to the humanities budget to pay for Trump’s planned “Garden of Heroes.” The garden, which is meant to feature 250 life-size statues of notable Americans, is, like the arch, meant to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. The government has already earmarked around $74 million for the garden, according to a recent CNN report, and is also looking for additional donations both for the garden and for Trump’s controversial vision of turning a local DC golf course into a championship links.
Trump’s plan to beautify the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument by painting it blue is also running into issues. Trump originally bragged the work could be done for less than $2 million, but a CNN review of federal contracting data shows that more than $13 million has been allocated for the project.
The Air Force is preparing to unveil a new-to-Trump Air Force One that was donated by Qatar. The US government’s acceptance of the $400 million plane raised ethical questions and also flirted with violating the Emoluments Clause of the Constitution.
But Trump defended getting a free gift, although accepting the plane ended up being quite expensive.
CNN reported funds to modify the plane — hundreds of millions of dollars — were diverted from Sentinel, a behind-schedule nuclear weapons modernization effort. The plane is meant only to be a bridge to the next iteration of Air Force One, which is also behind schedule. A new fleet of planes to transport the president is expected after Trump leaves office.
Taxpayers paid to upgrade the jet, but Trump heaped thanks on Qatar.
“I could be a stupid person (and) say, ‘No, we don’t want a free, very expensive airplane.’ But it was — I thought it was a great gesture,” Trump said last May.
That wasn’t the last time Trump raised the question of intelligence when pressed about money. This month he called a reporter “dumb” when she asked about the doubling cost of the ballroom, despite Trump’s repeated claims that it is on schedule and under budget.
“I doubled the size of it, you dumb person,” he said on the White House lawn.